I wouldn’t enjoy video games, and I definitely wouldn’t be playing roguelikes, if I thought that playing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome was “insanity.” By definition, they are repeating a lot of the same actions over and over again in the hopes that this time, Steve would be different. I’m going to beat my head against that boss till that mother is defeated this time. I’m going to finish the run this time, and I’m going to look amazing while doing it. It will be different this time.
I tell myself such things while I die in Absolum for the hundredth time; a roguelite beats them up, and it’s entertaining enough for me to believe it might be real each time. Of course, there’s the indisputable chance that I’ve gone completely crazy, locking myself in a psychiatric room, Looney-Tunes-finger-on-lips, and cuckooing for Cocoa Puffs. I’ll let you decide that.
The point, reader, is that my score would be far lower than the one at the bottom of this page if you had placed a gun to my head five hours into Absolum and demanded that I score it immediately. However, I’m a professional, and you don’t end a movie in the middle. Absolum’s blending of genres has many unsatisfactory elements, and these growing pains are particularly noticeable in the early going. Even while the game is still never quite what I intended it to be, it comes together fairly beautifully if you persevere through that hard beginning and reach the point where you have some permanent prizes, have opened up the map, and runs end with you operating with a complete kit and making decent progress.
I never thought I’d see the phrase “Roguelite beat ’em up” together, much less in a sentence, yet here we are. You need a reason to die and a motivation to return because it’s a roguelite. The explanation for death is straightforward: a magical catastrophe destroyed Talamh’s land (dude, what’s the deal with mages and magical cataclysms?). Sun King Azra has seized over. Why can’t they ever stumble their way into magical utopias? Wizards are enslaved, and the common public, still a bit angry by the whole “breaking the world” thing, is naturally not overly upset about it.
Playing as one of the rebels, you try to defeat him by using that prohibited power. That’s the section about “how you’ll die.” The reason for your return is that you work for Uchawi, the final Root Sister, and when you bite your tongue, she intervenes to keep your ass from being doomed to an eternity. Live, die, get saved by Uchawi, repeat. The Sun King has to perish. You must also murder him.
Although it takes some time to get there, the plot eventually travels to some amazing places.
No offense intended, but Absolum’s problem is that the story isn’t that engaging for a significant portion of its duration, particularly in the beginning. I love a good old-fashioned “somebody done somebody/a lot of somebodies/society/the world at large and now that somebody gotta die” story as much as the next guy. Yes, the world’s overall history is interesting, there are some interesting character moments, and some talks tantalizingly raise more questions than they do.
Although a majority of it is set in a very basic fantasy environment, there is more going on here than first meets the eye. Elves have a fabled, lost realm; the strong authority in many areas allows you to get entry by beating up The Current Big Boss; dwarves live underground; they delved too deeply (figuratively) and greedily; awful things happened. Though it takes a bit to get there, the plot does finally go to some amazing places (and, like Hades, you really have to play it through several times to see everything).
Therefore, it’s a good thing that Absolum’s playing part works. With four characters to choose from (though you only begin with the first two listed here), it’s essentially a typical beat ’em up: Cider, a nimble thief who is almost more machine than woman; Brome, the frog-shaped spellcaster; Galandra, the elven knight with a massive sword; and Karl, the bruiser dwarf with a gun. Every character has a regular combination, a throw, a strike that is specific to that character (Cider drags herself to adversaries, Galandra utilizes her sword, etc.), a few special attacks that are related to a meter, and an Ultimate Attack.
When you put everything together to create lengthy combinations, bounce foes off walls or one another, and chain moves together in a symphonic beatdown that would make even the most die-hard action game fan blush, that’s when the real sicko stuff happens. The guys behind Streets of Rage 4 created Absolum, and it contains all the sauce, as you might expect. I especially enjoyed how many of the moves honored the greats: several of Galandra’s attacks are reminiscent of Devil May Cry’s Dante, and Cider’s Gyro Drop is basically Ryu Hayabusa’s Izuna Drop. You know if you do. They’re merely cool moves if you don’t.
Aside from the whole “man, can you get lost in this sauce and it tastes good” combo-mad gameplay, Absolum’s emphasis on defense is what really sets it apart from its beat ’em up siblings. You can dodge, which is fairly typical for a contemporary beat-’em-up, but if you do it in the proper moment, you can deflect an enemy’s strikes and possibly expose them. However, if you’re feeling especially spicy, you may time your blows to coincide with an enemy’s assault to create a clash and stun them for a little moment, allowing you to punish them with a delicious, sweet combination. The rewards are enormous, but this is more difficult.
And it feels fantastic when you beat a boss who was beating you up, and suddenly the timing works out so they can’t hit you anymore. Absolum’s credentials are indisputable when it comes to gameplay in the moment.
Absolum has unquestionable combat credentials, but its roguelite structure causes issues.
Instead, its structure as a roguelite is the source of its issues. It’s acceptable to unlock additional rituals that enhance your strikes, deflects, clashes, dodges, and other maneuvers on each run. The ones that produce throwable blades and let you prolong combinations by hitting people with chain lighting or locking them into a bubble are my favorites. Looking for a mount to assist you? Fantastic. Hiring a mercenary (or locating a chicken) to follow you about and assist in battle, or purchasing or locating some trinkets to increase your stats? That stuff is fantastic.
The fact that each character’s equipment has been obviously disassembled and divided into upgrades known as Inspirations for you to momentarily obtain during your runs is terrible. Galandra’s leaping leap? Fantastic. transformative. Her three-hit sword combination is no different. She ought to have it at all times. She doesn’t only because we need to upgrade and have a purpose to choose the route that you know would lead to inspiration, because this is a roguelite. It feels like lightning strikes as you switch from that one-hit sword attack to the three-hit combo.
The same is true of Cider’s ability to run through adversaries or her legally unique Izuna Drop. I answered, “Oh,” after obtaining them once. “It should always be like this.” These are essential components of the kits and identities of these characters. All of them shouldn’t be restricted by arbitrary improvements. You guys, please offer me something here that I don’t need to unlock in addition to my special assaults and strikes. As a treat, just a little fun. Admittedly, you will quickly discover the best way and probably never stray from it once you discover which paths lead to improvements (Absolum is a roguelike, but its map remains the same).
The ongoing evolution is the other issue. You’re not supposed to win Absolum on your first try. As you accumulate the money required to purchase permanent enhancements (and discover new, lucrative routes) to help you get through subsequent runs, you’re expected to die a lot. Yes, you might be able to advance more quickly if you’re very skilled at Absolum, but there isn’t much room for error at the beginning. I frequently felt like I was dying since my statistics weren’t high enough in both solo and co-op. Absolum’s tendency to be frugal with health pickups doesn’t help either.
It feels awful to be a slave to the Evil God of Numbers in a beat ’em up, a genre where you can usually get by on ability alone. This format could work in a game like Hades, but there isn’t much narrative meat to munch on in between runs. When RPG features interfere with my action game, which is often the case in Absolum’s early hours, I truly detest it. Running initially feels like you’re just going through the motions. There are relatively few options available to you, and you always begin in the same spot. That entails repeatedly encountering the same foes, settings, and bosses with no opportunity for variation.
Indeed, there are tasks and occasionally fascinating new things appear—I’ll never forget my first visit to [redacted]—but there is a lot of repetition here, and Absolum doesn’t manage it the way the finest roguelikes, like FTL, for instance, do. I frequently felt like a broken record in the early hours of the morning, pushing the boundaries of what constitutes crazy. The fact that it’s always there, in the same spot, every time dulls even the excitement of discovering a hidden chest. The terrain itself never really changes, even though the content you’ll receive does change, and new items are occasionally added. This roguelite has too many rogues. It cannot simply be a system of progression. Everything must revolve around that as well, and putting that into practice conflicts with how beat ’em ups operate.
After about eight hours, my expertise and Having Enough Numbers dovetailed, and I began to advance with each run. Eventually, it does connect. I started having a lot more fun after the jump, which was fairly significant. On the one hand, less repetition is a big plus! However, I believe that there is merit to games that use structure and mechanics to support their story. It would be awful to keep dying while trying to overthrow a tyrant! You’d get tired of it! That choice, in my opinion, strengthens Absolum’s narrative, but I don’t believe it is compelling enough, particularly at first, to merit that.
And since so much of Absolum is excellent, it’s awful to feel that way. Kids, when it hits, it hits. It’s gorgeous, has great music, has good combat, has interesting build-up possibilities, and more. I could have avoided the repeat, though. It took me approximately 20 hours to see the main story’s climax; however, there is a better version of this game out there that only takes about half that long. I would have definitely bowed out before anything ever clicked if I hadn’t been evaluating Absolum, but sadly, that’s not the one we got. I can’t hold it against my co-op partner, who did.
Verdict
Absolum is a fantastic beat ’em up that is hampered by a roguelite framework. In action games, I detest being constrained by numbers rather than skill, and it feels like you’re a slave to them in the early hours of the morning. Absolum is really captivating as the plot takes up and you start making significant progress with each run. However, it took me a while to arrive. The feeling of dread when I died again and knew that I would have to do some variant of the same thing again is something that beautiful artwork, great music, and clever combat spread out among multiple diverse characters do a lot to carry.
I don’t mind failing; I just wish it had more diversity, which Absolum doesn’t have until much later in its runtime. The fact that it still succeeds in being a thrilling beat ’em up is a credit to the talent and effort of its creators. However, it would be much better if it simply proceeded. I have a single life to live, unlike Absolum’s heroes.
